Waiting For Stevie

[epilogue]

The whole WFS thing is something that RM made up, not a real thing

[VinylGuy]

Let me clarify, not RM but just The Tragsters

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Birds in Hell]

The whole WFS thing is something that RM made up, not a real thing

It's a real thing but I definitely understand why it wouldn't bother someone else.

The song undeniably was written during the sessions for Ed's solo record. The original story was that Wotman came in with the riff and they turned it into a song while 'waiting for Stevie' but the song didn't fit with the Earthling material. Once it found its way onto Dark Matter, Ed started changing the story to suggest riff was a combination of things written by both he and Wotman. Several RMers clung onto this story to suggest it was really a song written by Ed after all, notwithstanding it sounds nothing like anything he's written in his career. Amusingly, Howard Stern challenged Ed to play the riff during the band interview - and he was completely lost, couldn't do it.

I guess the barrier for me is that I don't just see the band as a factory for churning out "Pearl Jam"-sounding material. The process of creation matters, not just the end product. I'm only interested in the band as a creative outlet for the five individual members. If someone else is playing a significant role in that creative process, my interest is pretty much nil.

[VinylGuy]

I have not read that post

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Kevin Davis]

In general I agree with Spenno (i.e. primarily caring about the band as a creative outlet for the five guys in the group), but for one song here and there I don’t really care. They’ve had some third-party credits on various songs over the years (Dennis Frog, Damien Echols, Boom); it’s not a terminal condition of their work, and there is a lot more to the song than just that (pretty unremarkable IMO) riff. To that end I tend to view the riff as something of a “found sound” that the band used as a starting point but built into their own thing, not unlike a sample or some other such interpolation.

If Watt was going to become like a Desmond Child or a Diane Warren, I’d be a lot more cynical about it, but “Stevie” just feels to me like the kind of circumstantial thing that sometimes happens when musicians are in each others’ company for an extended period of time. I think a lot of musicians have sporadic instances of things like this throughout their careers.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[McParadigm]

One could almost start to wonder if Andrew Watt became the go-to producer for older, comfortable creatives because he’s good at making them think something he guided them to was their idea.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Kevin Davis]

In general I agree with Spenno (i.e. primarily caring about the band as a creative outlet for the five guys in the group), but for one song here and there I don’t really care. They’ve had some third-party credits on various songs over the years (Dennis Frog, Damien Echols, Boom); it’s not a terminal condition of their work, and there is a lot more to the song than just that (pretty unremarkable IMO) riff. To that end I tend to view the riff as something of a “found sound” that the band used as a starting point built into their own thing, not unlike a sample or some other such interpolation.

If Watt was going to become like a Desmond Child or a Diane Warren, I’d be a lot more cynical about it, but “Stevie” just feels to me like the kind of circumstantial thing that sometimes happens when musicians are in each others’ company for an extended period of time. I think a lot of musicians have sporadic instances of things like this throughout their careers.

But the retcon is still embarrassing! If this were star wars, RM would be losing its goddamn mind.

If Ed said one thing about the song and then went back and intentionally revised the story using falsehoods in order to make himself look better, then I agree, that’s stupid and embarrassing.

I tend to take most “song origin” stories with a grain of salt anyway though, especially from someone like Ed who I suspect enjoys many of the same memory-clouding amenities in the studio (and probably before interviews) that he does on stage. It’s possible that he completely retconned the “Stevie” story, but I think it’s equally possible that both versions of the story — the original and the revision — were just equally but differently incomplete recollections of the same scenario, filtered through whatever version of Ed’s memory we were getting at the time. I could be wrong though; I don’t know that I ever read the exact interviews.

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[McParadigm]

He does like to mythologize song inspirations.

And he did once refer to Daughter as one of the songs from their third album.

[McParadigm]

I am sorry, but this man is clearly incompetent to stand trial for the crime.

[wease]

He does like to mythologize song inspirations.

And he did once refer to Daughter as one of the songs from their third album.

And it was called Brother at one point.

[Chris_H_2]

He does like to mythologize song inspirations.

And he did once refer to Daughter as one of the songs from their third album.

And it was called Brother at one point.

Because he completely forgot that they already had a song named Brother that they wrote less than two years earlier.

[stip]

Understandable. I forget the songs I write and release that sell millions of copies all the time

[dimejinky99]

In general I agree with Spenno (i.e. primarily caring about the band as a creative outlet for the five guys in the group), but for one song here and there I don’t really care. They’ve had some third-party credits on various songs over the years (Dennis Frog, Damien Echols, Boom); it’s not a terminal condition of their work, and there is a lot more to the song than just that (pretty unremarkable IMO) riff. To that end I tend to view the riff as something of a “found sound” that the band used as a starting point built into their own thing, not unlike a sample or some other such interpolation.

If Watt was going to become like a Desmond Child or a Diane Warren, I’d be a lot more cynical about it, but “Stevie” just feels to me like the kind of circumstantial thing that sometimes happens when musicians are in each others’ company for an extended period of time. I think a lot of musicians have sporadic instances of things like this throughout their careers.

But the retcon is still embarrassing! If this were star wars, RM would be losing its goddamn mind.

no, it wouldnt.

[dimejinky99]

He does like to mythologize song inspirations.

And he did once refer to Daughter as one of the songs from their third album.

there quite literally and physically is another album in there.

just because you havent heard it

[sweeper]

The whole WFS thing is something that RM made up, not a real thing

Amusingly, Howard Stern challenged Ed to play the riff during the band interview - and he was completely lost, couldn't do it.

I'm not really sure what you're getting at but the clip is on YouTube and:

1) Howard doesn't ask him to play it. Ed just plays it on his own.
2) For someone that doesn't play guitar on this song (on record or live), he plays it fine. If he did come up with the riff it would have been at least a year prior to this Stern interview. And yet he still plays it fine off of memory for someone that wouldn't have needed to play the riff in awhile.

You're completely stretching with some form of bias for what you want to believe with your comments here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XudnJXXgejc